Julius Africanus is one of the pre-Nicene Christian authors, like Abercius (Avircius) and Alexander of Jerusalem, about whom we would dearly love to know more. Like Alexander, he had connections with Clement and Origen, and also with Jerusalem; like both of them he travelled throughout the early Christian world. Two of his works survive: his Cesti, a work dedicated to the Emperor Alexander Severus which betrays no Christian inclinations at all, and his Chronographiae. Of both works only fragments are preserved: one direct (papyrus) fragment of the Cesti, otherwise the fragments survive as quotations in later works. This volume is an edition of the extant fragments of the Chronographiae. It has itself a curious history, being the edition that Heinrich Gelzer had prepared in the nineteenth century to accompany his work on the use of Africanus in Byzantine chronographies. Persuaded by Harnack to submit it to the newly founded series, Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller, he died (in 1906) before completing his edition. That nearly-complete edition, thought lost, turned up in a library in Jena in 2000, and now forms the basis of the present edition, in the new series of GCS. Martin Routh's nineteenth-century edition, included in his Reliquiae sacrae (vol. ii, second edn, 1846), was a landmark in our knowledge of Africanus, but this edition has almost twice as many fragments, and reveals even more of the extraordinary learning of Africanus. Africanus provided the groundwork for a succession of later historians, including Eusebius and George Syncellus, who both made extensive use of his work, as well as many others. It is generally held that the genre of the chronography is Christian in origin and apologetic in purpose, and the example of Eusebius would seem to bear this out. The fragments of Africanus, however, suggest a more complex account. Although the apologetic motive is clearly present, it is also evident that historical curiosity was a powerful motive, too. Africanus was fascinated by historical information, and draws on a wide variety of sources; his apologetic concerns do not seem to be paramount. The biblical history provides his framework; he is concerned to place creation 5,500 years before the incarnation. The extant fragments, however, betray no interest in aligning the date of creation, the conception of Christ and his crucifixion with the vernal equinox, as we find in some of the Byzantine chronographies. It is perhaps a sign of the authority of Africanus' datings that George Syncellus frequently and explicitly corrects them. This edition collects together ‘fragments’, which contain actual quotations from Africanus, and ‘testimonies’, where his views are mentioned. English is used for the introduction, translation and notes (a sign of the times); the commentary in the notes is limited to questions of translation and issues of dating. Much light is shed on a host of problems, although often enough it is the kind of illumination that reveals further caverns of even more impenetrable darkness.